Avoid Food Until Further Notice

New pistachio contamination scandal proves that no food is safe

By Sara K. Smith •Published March 31, 2009•Updated on April 1, 2009 at 11:51 pm

It used to be a person could run down to the grocery store and get a jar of peanut butter without fear of ending up in the morgue by sundown. But in the Great Nut Seige of 2008-09, we have all learned that nuts are not to be trusted. Nuts attract mice and birds and terrible rats, which put salmonella into the nuts, which will kill you sometimes.

A new announcement tells us that pistachios are the latest entrant on the list of the world's deadliest nuts. Kraft Foods told the FDA a week ago that it had found salmonella in roasted pistachios, which are not supposed to ever have salmonella in them because roasting should kill the bacteria. However, if a horrible varmint ends up in your nut-storage bins, all bets are off.

So let's recap the food scandals of the past couple of years, and what it tells us about what we can and can't eat. Don't eat spinach, because of the E. coli; do not consume baby formula or dog food because of the melamine; and avoid nuts of any sort because of the salmonella. Looking over this data, it's clear that we're due for a good old-fashioned botulism outbreak.

Bottom line: Don't eat anything you didn't grow yourself, wash thoroughly, store in a sterilized and hermetically sealed glass chamber, and then microwave for at least 45 minutes. Better yet, don't eat anything. Food is filthy, it gives you diseases, and it makes you fat. We're all better off without it.

Sara K. Smith travels the country spreading the word about her revolutionary "No-Food Diet" when she isn't writing for NBC and Wonkette.